


New

by welseykels



Series: Dragon Age: Aeryn Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welseykels/pseuds/welseykels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Aeryn get further acquainted with one another while camping on their way to the Shrine of Dumat to track down Samson.  Light smut ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://welseykels.tumblr.com/writing)

"Cullen?"

Her voice was soft, so soft that he thought it was still a part of his dream. The dreams that now came more often before they dissolved into nightmares. Dreams that involved her. Dreams he should not have of his Inquisitor. Dreams that left him wanting when he woke. Wanting her lips on his. Her hands tangled in his hair. Her breath mixed with his...

But then she spoke his name again and he realized that her voice was coming from somewhere else, somewhere outside his head.

He slowly opened his eyes, looking to where the moonlight poured in from the open flap of his tent. He shifted up on his bedroll until he was resting on his elbows when he focused on her. She stood there in the opening, moonlight creating a pale glow around her fiery hair. He'd never realized how long it was, Aeryn usually preferring to wear it in a loose bun instead of the waves cascading past her shoulders as it was now.

_Maker's breath, she was beautiful._

He could hardly believe their kiss on the battlements had happened.

_Could you think of me as anything more than just a mage?_

Oh maker, he could. He did.

When she said his name a third time, he realized that he still hadn't responded.

"Aeryn... I... what's wrong?"

Something had to be wrong, she was standing at the entrance of his tent in the middle of the night. He had barely spoken to her since the kiss on the battlements one week ago, their duties had kept them apart. Their only conversation since had been a briefing on what was to come if Samson was at the Shrine of Dumat. He was certain that Maddox would be there, but would his old friend? Was she worried about what the next day would bring, now that they had almost reached their destination? Or was it something else... something more personal?

Was she there to tell him that she made a mistake in choosing him? Surely, there was someone better suited for her. Someone who hadn't been Templar. Someone who hadn't distrusted mages for so long. Someone who wasn't him. She'd asked him that day on the battlements if he regretted the kiss. He didn't, oh Maker, he didn't. He'd wanted to kiss her for so long. Longer than he dared admit to her. But what if she had regretted it?

She stood there for a moment longer in the opening. Cullen felt a blush cross his cheeks when he realized she was wearing nothing more than linen pants and a worn tunic. He had never seen her in anything less than her armour. Well, there was the tan uniform she wore at Skyhold, but that was beyond the point. There had never been anything quite like this. The shirt was too big, it pooled around her shoulders, giving him a glimpse of her collarbones and her right shoulder. He swallowed hard when she took a step into the tent, letting the flap fall behind her.

"Cullen, I..." She let out a shaky breath.

He moved to stand, but she was quicker. Before he had even a chance to leave a sitting position, she was there. Her lips were on his and her hands were finding their way into his blonde curls and tangling themselves there. The suddenness of it all knocked the breath from his lungs. This must have been what it felt like for her when he had surprised her that day on the battlements. He felt her tongue brush against his scar and he parted his lips gladly for her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She moaned into his mouth when his fingers touched the bare skin of her back under her tunic, and he could feel the heat spread back across his face, making its way down his neck.

It was then that she pulled back, her green eyes searching his face. He wondered if her eyes had always been such a bright green - the same green as the breach - or if the mark had changed more than just her hand. He had always meant to ask her...

"Cullen... I... oh bother." Her gaze dropped down and she picked at a bit of fuzz on his shirt.

He raised one of his hands until his fingers brushed the bottom of her chin, lifting her head until her eyes shifted back to his.

"What's wrong?"

She sighed. "I know you said you could care for me. That you do care for me. But I'm afraid."

Concern flashed through his eyes as he caressed her cheek. "Afraid?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid because, well, because I've never felt like this before." Where she was unsure before, the words spilled out now. "There was a templar back at the circle, but he, but we could never be. It was a foolish crush. Nothing more. He was kind to me. I don't even know if he felt the same way, I'd been too shy to ask. We'd never even kissed. I - had never been kissed. Ever."

Her words settled in. Her first kiss had been with him? He had forced himself upon her with that kiss in his anger of being interrupted by that scout? That had been it? Oh Maker.

"Aeryn, I - I didn't mean to force that kiss on you. Oh Maker, your first kiss, I didn't -"

She lifted a pale finger to his lips.

"You thought you had forced yourself on me?"

"Well, I do now."

A slow smile crept across her lips. "You didn't. It was all that I had been hoping for for weeks." Her hand left his lips and travelled to cup his cheek. "But I suppose, with my entrance here tonight, we can call it even."

The fear in his chest dissipated into a chuckle.

"I suppose we can."

Her hand continued to move further up his face to play with a curl that had fallen onto his forehead. She marvelled in the way it would straighten in her fingers, then spring back into a twist as she let go.

"I - Cullen, I'm new to all this. I've never experienced this, these feelings, these wants quite so intensely. But I - I know I want you."

His heart softened when he felt the heat enter her cheeks under his palm. "I want you too."

"But I, I don't know what to do. I mean, I know what I want to do. I just, I just don't want to mess this up. Be bad at it. Physically, that is. I don't want to disappoint you."

A laugh rumbled from low in his chest.

" _Oh funny,_ laugh at the virgin." She had went back to playing with his shirt, her eyes following the small tuft that stubbornly clung to the fabric above his heart.

The chuckle continued, "Well, I'll have to laugh at us both then."

Her eyes flew up in surprise.

"You?"

"Yes, me."

"But-"

"I've been a part of the Chantry and the Order since I was thirteen. The order had rules, and while many chose to follow only some, I tried to be as honourable a Templar as I could. Well, what I had thought an honourable Templar was at the time, which wasn't always right. And at Kirkwall, well, I was not in a good state then for anyone. So I was alone. I'd thought it would be better that way. I've only been out of the Order for the last few months, and since then there's only been you in my thoughts."

She captured his lips again with hers, moving with more fervour than before. His fingers leapt up and buried themselves in her hair, his lips parting with hers to begin a trail down her neck. He was rewarded with a sigh tumbling from her lips. Her trembling fingers fiddled with the hem of his shirt before he tore his lips away from her skin to pull it over his head. He was thankful for the tear in the top of his tent similar to his tower at Skyhold, allowing the moonlight to filter in above their heads, so he could she her face as she examined him, her brows furrowing. He groaned, a low rumble in his chest, as her smooth fingers ran along the scars long since etched into his chest. His skin tingled wherever her fingers went. She lingered over a particularly deep indent that slashed across his heart.

"What happened?"

Her voice was barely a whisper, he almost hadn't heard her.

"It happened during the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall."

"We'd heard rumours in the circle of it. Horrible things. You were a part of that?"

"I was in the thick of it. I was second in command to the Knight-Commander of Kirkwall. I had been fighting for hours, surrounded by Qunari warriors, when one hit me square in the chest. I remember hearing my armour crack. I remember thinking that I was going to die there, bleeding out on the streets of Lowtown. But then the Champion of Kirkwall was standing over me with a mage at her side. I thought they were going to leave me for dead, when Anders, the mage, he used some sort of magic to knit me back together. I only remember waking up in a room at a tavern after. They had somehow gotten me away." His voice lowered. "Back then, I'd been more repulsed by the fact that magic had saved me, than grateful that I still had my life. I never did thank him, the next time I saw him was when he destroyed the Chantry."

"And how do you feel now? About my kind?" She gazed at him expectantly.

"Ashamed. Ashamed that I ever thought what I did about mages." He played with a stray lock of her hair that had fallen against his chest. "I do not feel the same way now."

She peppered kisses along his jaw, delighting in the sounds he made.

"I'm glad."

"Me, too."

She moved from where she had been sitting on his knees, to the empty space beside him. He quirked an eyebrow at her. Her hands moved to his shoulders and tugged him down with her to lay on his bedroll. Her kisses coming faster now along his jaw. He shifted until one of his arms was above her head, steadying him as he leaned over her. She rewarded this change with a open kiss along the pulse point of his neck. He groaned with pleasure. His hands searched for the hem of her shirt, his trembling fingers matched the tremor in her own when she had attempted to remove his.

"Is this... is this alright?"

She hummed her approval into the kisses she laid on his collarbone, raising her arms above her head. He lifted it slowly, wanting to savour the first time he saw more than just the curve of her neck, her forearm, her shoulder.

_Maker, she was beautiful._

He had wondered some mornings, when he awoke from dreams about her, just how far the freckles on her face and neck spread. Now, he knew they continued in a smattering on her shoulders and onto the tops of her breasts that he could see above the fabric of her breast band. He watched as her shoulders and chest rose and fell as she breathed, drinking her in with his eyes.

"Aeryn, I... you're stunning."

He could see the blush creep back over her cheeks.

"I am not, unless you count my lightning magic."

He laughed. "You are beautiful, Aeryn. Maker help me, I am a lucky man."

The blush moved down to cover her neck and the tops of her breasts, following the trail of her freckles that he already adored. She pulled him in again, her mouth greedy against his. His free hand found its way up her hip, following the curve of her waist, up to the fabric of her breast band. She mewled when his fingers found the hard nub he sought. Her hands found their way to his shoulders once more and clung there as his hand continued, her nails ever so slightly digging into the flesh there.

"I don't know what tomorrow will bring Cullen, but I know I want this, I want you. Tonight." Her breath came out in ragged gasps between their kisses. He responded by placing one of his thighs between her own, gently parting her legs. She rubbed herself up against him and purred when she felt his desire for her despite the layers of fabric between them.

Her hands left his shoulders only briefly to tug at the fabric around her torso and fling it to one side of the tent. She smiled when she saw the dumbstruck look on his face as he took in her half-naked form.

"Are you going to stare like that all night?"

He chucked again, as he lowered his mouth to the valley between her breasts. "I just might, my Lady."

It was then that they heard the crash of a rift opening and the scream of a demon. They hadn't even had time to register what they had heard, to part from one another, when a figure stumbled through the front of the tent.

"Where's the Inquisi - Andraste's tits! A rift opens up over camp and you two are _finally_ too busy being randy with one another to notice!" Sera's voice was shrill. Clearly, her fear of demons and magic had not lessened during their journeys with Aeryn. Aeryn made a vain attempt to cover herself from the intruder. "Get your amours you gits! I mean you're right fit Inquisitor, but I don't think demons'll appreciate seeing your knockers."

"Yeah Boss, you'd just end up distracting us with those beauties instead of the demons," The Iron Bull roared with laugher, joining Sera at the mouth of the tent. Cullen could feel the heat of a blush cover Aeryn entirely as he tried to shield her from their companions with his own body.

"I'm rather distracted now by our dear Commander." _Wonderful,_ _Dorian had thought to join in too._

"Get to the rift and we'll be right there," Cullen almost didn't recognize the growl as his own voice, but it had the intended effect. He heard the tent flap fall and three sets of feet run towards the sounds of the rift. He may have also heard a chorus of laughter from the trio, but he decided worry about that later.

Cullen slumped down onto Aeryn, groaning, his head resting on her chest. "We'll continue this some other time?" His breath was hot against her skin.

"Some other time, when we can take a break from saving the world." She stroked his hair once, before they pulled apart. "Sooner, rather than later."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic that I’ve ever written, AHHH!
> 
> While I don’t necessarily subscribe to the Chantry boys are chaste headcannon, preferring the way BioWare leaves it ambiguous, snatches of dialogue popped into my head and I wanted to write something around it... and then it kind of became my headcannon for Aeryn and Cullen's relationship. Whoops.


End file.
